Deriving their name from a British English word that means to be an avant-gardist — one who emphasizes, practices and celebrates experimental and unorthodox methods and techniques and incorporates them into a craft, Avantist is a South Side, Chicago-based post-punk act, comprised of the Arias Brothers, Luis (drums), David (guitar), Erick (bass) and Fernando (vocals). And over the past decade, the sibling band has dedicated their live stop making avant-garde music, centered around their shared personal philosophy that art is, should and must be progressive, dynamic and unconventional, and that creativity is something to incorporate in every single aspect of one’s life.
The band’s recently released EP Terasaoma finds the band stepping out of their comfort zone by forcing themselves to write, record, mix and master the EP’s material within a month, rather than the two years it took for their debut effort, and while further cementing the band’s reputation locally and regionally for crafting raucous and infectious post-punk, the EP finds the band pushing their sound and songwriting in wildly different directions; in fact, the EP’s material runs the gamut from angular and furious post-punk to soulful R&B. The EP’s latest single though is the thrashing and angular post-punk ripper “this_could_be_it,” which finds Fernando Arias howling and singing alternating lyrics in Spanish and English. May the song remind the listener that being proudly, boldly and fearlessly of color and representing everything that your heritage means in these dark, dark days is truly punk as fuck — and perhaps more so if you’re Black or of Latin descent.
Co-directed by the members of the band and Justin Nico Flocco, the recently released video for “this_could_be_it” is on some level a tale of death, rebirth and deliverance within a brutal, unforgiving, hellish world as it follows a Sisyphean-like protagonist, who is endlessly chased by armed soldiers that capture him, bound him and sacrifice him — repeatedly. Adding to the hellishness of the video, there’s a brief and fleeting suggestion that the the protagonist after a while is aware that his horrible fate is inescapable.
